Yaaay. New chapter time, and this one is almost all original scene.

also, ANNOUNCEMENT: The update schedule for this story is every weekday, BUT! if a chapter gets enough reviews, I'll post a second chapter on that day too!

Also, I am a review whore apparently. And don't worry aboout me running out of buffer, I'll be writing R2 next week.

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The mystery caller hung up. "Do you know any Silver?" Lelouch asked C.C.

She shook her head. "Must be someone you know. Or knows you at any rate." She sighed, standing up from the bath and leaving the room. "Well, whatever. I'm off to sleep."

"Oi." Lelouch stood up and turned to face her. "Someone's threatening my life and you're going to sleep?"

"It's been a long day." C.C. yawned. "Whoever he was, if he was polite enough to call ahead, he'll probably let you sleep first. Night!" She waved, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Lelouch sighed, and opened a number on his speed dial. "Ohgi." He said. "My problem with Mao has been dealt with, but now someone claiming to be Giovanni's son is convinced that he owes me revenge."

_\_ "Another one?" _\_ Ohgi asked with a worried tone, before sounding surprised. _\_ "Wait, Giovanni had a son?" _\_

"That's what I need you to find out." Lelouch told him. "I will deal with things on my end, but I need you to verify this for me."

_\_ "I understand." Ohgi nodded. _\_ "There's also the matter of who we should send as the Chinese envoy next week." _\_

Lelouch grunted. 'I can't send anyone Japanese; the Chinese view politeness as weakness.' He thought. 'Who do I know that I can trust and is as rude as they come—'

"I know just the person." Lelouch smirked, glancing at the door C.C. left through. "Just give me some time to talk her into it; she's rather unpredictable."

_\_ "I know how you feel…" _\_ Ohgi sighed.

'Hm' Lelouch thought, feeling curious. "Is there a lady in your life Ohgi?"

_\_ "No! Well, maybe…" _\_ Ohgi spluttered, sounding uncomfortable discussing the matter with his superior officer.

Lelouch smiled and sat on his bed. "Tell me about her." He asked, leaving the bathroom and walking to his bed. "I will if you will."

_\_ "Well, alright then Zero." _\_ Ohgi managed. _\_ "She's… I found her unconscious with a stab wound to the chest in the Olivine shoreline after the battle." _\_ he admitted, and Lelouch suddenly took severe interest. _\_ "She's a Britannian, so I was going to take her to the hospital, but then she mentioned something about knowing who you were." _\_

Lelouch glared. This was most definitely very not good.

_\_ "I took her home and treat her wounds, but she has no memories of anything before she woke up." _\_ Ohgi continued. _\_ "She can still walk and talk, and she's great for conversation, but…" _\_

Lelouch let out a relieved sigh. 'That's one problem out of the way then…' "Take care of her Ohgi." Lelouch ordered. "Don't let her get away, because it's clear that you care for this woman and you damn well deserve one."

_\_ "Y-yessir!" _\_ Ohgi stammered, excruciatingly embarrassed.

The leader of the Order of the Black Knights smiled to himself. "Goodnight, Ohgi." He told his second-in-command before hanging up and getting some well-earned sleep.

He woke up next to Kallen's smiling face.

"Morning sleepyhead." She giggled, stroking Lelouch's face and glanced down at her very revealing nightgown, before curling into a ball and kicking her in the stomach and out of his bed.

"Wh-what the hell!?" she choked, getting to her feet, clutching her stomach as Lelouch grabbed the hand gun from under his pillow and aimed it for her face.

"Who are you?" Lelouch demanded.

"I-it's me!" she shouted. "Who do you think!?"

"Kallen has a larger chest than that and would never, ever call someone like me 'sleepyhead'." Lelouch stated.

The girl stared at him with a blank look on her fake face , then shrugged. "Ah well." She sighed. "No fun if they fall for it all the time."

Lelouch clicked the gun for effect, and realised the problem. It was too light.

"Yeah, I emptied it last night." The woman stated, tugging off a mask from her face which re-formed into a ditto which dissapeared into a pokéball that she shouldn't have been able to hide. "Still, you're surprisingly alert after seeing such a beautiful woman in bed with you in a morning." She said, pulling off a wig and shaking out her long brown hair. "Are you gay?"

Lelouch snarled, tossing the useless weapon aside. "Who are you?" He demanded. "Answer My Questions."

"Sure." The woman nodded, completely under the Geass's control.

"Who are you?"

"My name's Blue Izayoi." She answered. "Evolver under the Mask of Ice."

'Mask of Ice?' Lelouch asked. "What is the Mask of Ice's objective?"

"She is dead, so I don't think she has one." Blue shrugged.

'Sarcasm while under the Geass?' Lelouch thought to himself. 'Should be possible, if one is cynical enough.' "Then who are you working for?"

"Nobody."

"Who are you working with" Lelouch rephrased testily.

"Silver Laguada." Blue answered.

"Why?"

"The guy's practically my little brother, and you kinda killed his dad." Blue pointed out.

"What makes you think that?"

"We found traces of the bomb in the wreckage." Blue told him. "Then some psycho mind-reader guy called Mao stormed up to us and demanded to know where his droid was."

"Droid?" Lelouch asked.

"C-2 or something." Blue shrugged. "But Silver said that was the woman who dressed up as you, so we hired him to track you down and find out if you planted the bomb or if it was Britannia, and he agreed since we were going to fly him and the girl to Australia as a payoff. He confirmed it for us a couple of days ago, but wanted to get the girl from you before we moved in to take you out."

"Who of your organisation knows of this or my identity?" Lelouch asked.

"Just me and Silver for both." She admitted as C.C. crept into the room.

"Do you intend to involve any innocents in your plan to kill me?"

"Depends what you judge as 'involve', but as a blanket answer, yes."

"What do you mean by involve?" Lelouch asked, making sure to keep to asking questions.

"Nothing worse than tying a couple of people up in a few cupboards and replacing them, maybe some knocking out, minor kidnapping at worst." Blue shrugged. "I don't want to kill anyone."

"Where is Silver now and what is he doing?" Lelouch asked, sighing internally at the promise of his friends safety.

"Somewhere on campus watching us through that security camera in the corner." Blue pointed, and Lelouch turned reflexively, unconsciously breaking eye contact.

'I put that there to scout for Mao…' Lelouch thought, before spinning around to see Blue rubbing her forehead. 'Damn. Best make the most of this.'

"Thank you for your cooperation." Lelouch told her. "You've been most helpful."

"Eh?" Blue asked as Lelouch grabbed her from behind. "Wait, what?"

She recovered from her surprise quickly and flipped over Lelouch before he could fully catch her. She kicked Lelouch in the back of the neck, sending him to the floor, and ran for the window. Vaulting out of it, she landed on her released blastoise, which flew her away on the streams of a hydro-pump.

Lelouch got back up, rubbing his neck. "It's not as bad as I anticipated." He told C.C. "But we've still got problems."

"What do you intend to do?" C.C. asked.

"Call student council, tell them what's going on, try to find any moles." He replied, before remembering himself and throwing a heavy book at the security camera, crushing it under the tome's mass.

"Nice shot." C.C. complimented.

"I've had practice." Lelouch replied offhand, reaching for his school uniform. "But my main problem is whether or not Mao told them about the Geass." He said. "They know about his mind-reading ability, and now Silver might be able to work out my power of Absolute Obedience."

"So are you going to kill him?" C.C. asked as Lelouch started pulling on his clothes.

Lelouch paused, thinking. "If I used my Geass to order someone to follow my orders, what do you think would happen?" He asked.

"I don't know, every Geass is different." C.C. reminded him.

"I know, I'm asking for your hypothesis." Lelouch asked, restarting his dressing. "I need to hear it from another person's perspective."

"Well, I would believe that they would view you as their commanding officer and do as you said, if I had to guess." C.C. shrugged. "But I doubt that it'd be absolute obedience."

"So they wouldn't become a mindless zombie entirely." Lelouch sighed in relief. That wasn't a fate he'd wish on anyone. No, not even his family…

"I didn't say that." C.C. warned. "I meant that they would be limited in the orders that they could carry out, and they would no longer go beyond the impossible to follow your orders."

Lelouch glanced at the witch. "Beyond the impossible?"

"Your Geass imposes a command that the subject does everything in their power to fulfill. If you ordered someone to shut up under the Geass, for example, they would probably never literally open their mouth again. If, however, you ordered them to do it after Geassing them for they're loyalty, they'd end up talking again afterwards- it wouldn't be absolute. That said, they still wouldn't be able to refuse an order from you, but their priorities would be on their loyalty to you rather than any additional orders you give."

"I see." Lelouch nodded. "Thank you, C.C." He told her, buttoning his shirt up.

"Eh?" C.C. asked, dropping her cool demeanour for a second.

"I don't want to be consumed by this power, and you've just told me something that will stop me from doing so." He smiled at her as he shrugged on a jacket. "I'm very grateful."

"Now stay in here." Lelouch ordered her as he left his bedroom. "That way, if you show up somewhere else, I won't have to hesitate killing you."

He slammed the door behind him, and C.C. sighed. "Honestly…" She managed, Jiro floating up to her, asking for a cuddle.

"Shirley. Suzaku. Nunnally. Milly. Kallen. Nina." Lelouch told everyone during the morning meeting. "Someone has infiltrated the academy and is after my life."

"WHAT!?"

"I have good reason to believe that they have no intention of harming anyone else!" Lelouch added hurriedly. "But I'm warning you because there were two assassins and one of them is a master of disguise with no qualms against kidnapping one of you and assuming your identity."

"What makes you so sure?" Milly asked, serious for once.

"Because I woke up to find Kallen in my bed, calling me sleepyhead." Lelouch told them. "As you can imagine, I figured it out after that"

"WHAT!?" Kallen shouted, standing up in outrage, her sickly mask slipping momentarily. "Why me!?"

"Luck of the draw probably." Lelouch lied. "What I do know is that the leader is a psychopath who is convinced that I am Zero."

That made Kallen realise the gravity of the situation. "That's awful!" Suzaku shouted, standing up himself. "I'll get the military-"

"No." Lelouch ordered. "So far, the only reason I wasn't killed in my sleep is because they want to play with me first. If we don't go along with their game, then it won't be long before they decide to finish up and leave."

Suzaku sat down angrily. "So what should we do?"

"The only thing we can do is try to find the leader." Lelouch said. "And stop the other one from leaving this room."

"Eeeh!?" Shirley gasped. "You think that the person after you is one of us?"

"I know so." Lelouch nodded. "Because Nina didn't flinch when I mentioned Zero."

"Eh?" Nina gasped, standing up as everyone turned to her. "B-what?"

"Nina..?" Shirley managed.

"Seriously?" Suzaku asked, spinning around.

"You…" Kallen snarled.

"Where's Nina!" Milly demanded.

"N-No!" Nina protested, backing off. "I-it's not me!"

"Why would you want to kill big brother?" Nunnally asked angrily. "What did he ever do to you?"

Shing

Everyone turned to see Lelouch pressing a blade to Nunnally's throat. "L-LELOUCH!!" Suzaku shouted.

"Nunnally would never get angry at someone like that." Lelouch growled. "Never. She can forgive anyone for anything. She can understand and sympathise with any pain, especially the pain of losing a parent! I, however, Am Not So Forgiving."

He turned to Nina. "Sorry for using you like that Nina." Lelouch apologised, keeping the blade close to his sister's throat. "But I needed to test everyone's reactions."

"Um… okay…" Nina mumbled, still somewhat in shock.

Lelouch then turned back to his prisoner, grabbing the side of her face and pulling the ditto from it, tossing it aside. It hit the wall with a splat and immediately camouflaged itself into the colour of the wallpaper out of fear. "Where Is Nunnally?" Lelouch asked slowly and angrily, pressing the edge of the knife against Blue's throat.

Click

Lelouch looked down to see the handgun pressed against his wedding tackle. "Careful." Blue giggled. "I'm sure you'd like to use that someday."

"Holy…" Suzaku managed as Blue stood up, removing Nunnally's wig.

"For the record, she's fine." Blue told everyone. "Lulu, on the other hand-"

She was interrupted by the feel of cold gunmetal to the back of the head. "Where is she?" Suzaku demanded.

"Whoo… I've lost this one, haven't I?" Blue whistled. "Fine, she's in her bedroom, probably crawling on the floor looking for her chair."

"Bitch…" Lelouch snarled as Kallen slowly removed the gun from the girl's fingers, then noticed the drop of blood on her hand.

"Lelouch!" Kallen shouted. "You're slitting her throat!"

He glanced at Blue's neck, seeing blood run down his blade. "I didn't pierce the artery." He said, pulling the sword back and handing Kallen a handkerchief. "She'll be fine if she keeps this against the cut."

Kallen handed it to Blue who took it gratefully. "Get down to your knees and put your other hand on top of your head." Suzaku ordered, and she did so. "Does anyone have anything we can tie her up with or to?" he then asked.

"I have handcuffs!" Milly declared, pulling a pink, fluffy pair from her schoolbag. "Don't worry, they're solid!"

"She's probably an adept lock pick as well." Lelouch warned as Suzaku took the cuffs gingerly, neither questioning their original purpose or why Milly had them. "So someone should keep an eye on her in case while I get Nunnally and find her partner."

"I'll do it." Milly volunteered. "I wanna ask how she trained her ditto to do that!"

'And I don't doubt that you wouldn't find a use for it.' Lelouch thought to himself, grabbing Nunnally's wheelchair, then thinking better of it.

"Kallen, I know that I should help my sister right now, but I need to find this man before he hurts anyone else." He told her, handing her the handles. "Please can you…"

"Sure." Kallen nodded, keeping up her fragile girl act while cottoning onto the fact that Lelouch couldn't let anyone know about C.C..

"Nina, Shirley, please help the council president look after this one, and Suzaku and I will find her partner." Lelouch decided. "Call us if she says anything. And be careful!"

"Okay." Shirley nodded and Nina made a nervous sound of some sort while everyone split into their groups.

After a few minutes of running around the school, Suzaku said something that made Lelouch stop dead.

"What makes you think that the girl is the only master of disguise of the two?"

Lelouch turned around slowly to see Suzaku aiming a gun at him. 'Damn.' Lelouch snarled internally. 'I really, really should have considered this.'

He threw a pokéball. "CHARIZARD!" He shouted, summoning his dragon to breath fire at his friend. Suzaku, barely even flinching in surprise, jumped through the flames and pushed Lelouch to the ground.

"I NEVER SAID IT WAS ME!!" Suzaku shouted. "Calm down Lelouch!"

"Sorry…" Lelouch sighed, returning his dragon. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, it was a pretty low heat attack." Suzaku replied, wiping ash from his clothes. "Your charizard must've known it was me."

Lelouch laughed. "Smarter than me then." He joked. "Let's get going."

"Sure. Because there's no way you could find me on you own, huh?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

Lelouch and Suzaku twisted around to see a young boy, younger than both of them, standing in their school uniform. He had long red hair that went down to his shoulders, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses around his eyes. "You disgust me." He told Lelouch. "You're weak, and you hide behind others to keep up the façade of strength." He laughed bitterly. "What a jo-"

He was interrupted by a punch to the face from Lelouch. "Don't play mind games with me." Lelouch warned, kneeling atop the boy as the sunglasses bounced onto the floor. "Suzaku!" He shouted, pinning the red-haired boy to the floor. "Take his pokéballs!"

Lelouch was elbowed in the face by Silver, who pushed out from underneath him and stood up only to be decked by Suzaku's right hook. "I got him." The brown-haired boy reported.

Lelouch stood up, nursing his tender nose. "Shure?" He managed.

"Yeah, he's out cold." Suzaku nodded, kneeling down to grab the kid's pokéballs. "Sure this is the guy? He's just a kid."

"What's his team?" Lelouch asked.

"Er… feraligatr, weavile, crobat, gengar, alakazam, whoa!"

"What is it?"

"It's entei…" Suzaku gasped, offering the heavy ball to Lelouch to look at. He took it, and the pale underside became translucent under his gaze to show a miniature representation of the legendary fire beast.

"I heard Team Rocket had those…" Lelouch muttered. "This guy said that he was Giovanni's son, but I don't remember him from when we lived with the Laguada's…" Lelouch asked.

"Me neither." Suzaku replied, shaking his head. "But Giovanni did die recently."

Lelouch feigned surprise. "What!?"

The Japanese boy nodded. "Yeah, his ship got obliterated when someone did something to turn the dock into a mass of gyarados somehow…"

"But why would he think I was Zero…" Lelouch pondered, hoping Suzaku would provide an argument in his defence for him.

"I have no idea, but we need to put this guy under arrest." Was what Lelouch got instead, to his alarm.

"Wait, hold on!" Lelouch told his friend, grabbing his wrist as he reached for his pokégear. "If this guy has any evidence that suggests that I might be Zero, true or not, then they'll take me away for questioning too!"

Suzaku stopped dead. "They won't arrest you." Suzaku insisted. "You're innocent, so they won't arrest you."

He made the call.

He was, however, given the job of keeping an eye on the prisoner until the police arrived, giving Lelouch plenty of time to work out his plan with Silver.

The boy was still unconcious, so Lelouch pried open the eyelid to one of Silver's eyes and stared into it, Geass blazing.

"You do not want to kill me." He said, planting an order. "You only came here to analyse me psychologically and judge for yourself if the black knights were an organisation worth joining. From what you have seen you wish to join."

Silver's eye dialated and he groaned, beginning to rouse from unconciousness. "Hello, Silver," Lelouch said to the youth, grinning darkly. "Have I satisfied your expectations yet?"

"Zero…" the red-haired youth muttered, momentarily confused. He quickly recovered though, scowling. "Hmp… I suppose you aren't as weak as I first thought."

Lelouch's grin widened as his suspicions were confirmed. Silver's opinion of him had changed, but his mind was still his own- by acting while Silver was knocked out, Lelouch's Geass had placed the command subconsciously.

Hearing some chattering from a group of approaching people, Lelouch grabbed Silver and pulled him into the maze of filing cabinets.

"In a few minutes, you will knock me out with this lead pipe, take my alakazam, and you'll take Blue and teleport out of here." Lelouch told Silver, holding the boy's mouth shut. "You'll then be taken into custody of the Black Knights, and then we can work something out."

Silver batted Lelouch's arm out of the way. "What're you talking about?"

"Because if the police arrest you, I'll get questioned under your claims of being Zero, and then I won't be able to live this double life anymore and there'll be no-one to look after my little sister." Lelouch told him. "Considering the contempt you had for Team Rocket and your relationship with Blue, I'm sure you can relate."

Silver glared, considering the offer, and then stood up. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Because you'd make a decent addition to the team and I don't like to waste resources." Lelouch told him. "Now are you going to take my offer or what?"

Silver grabbed the pipe and swung.

Lelouch hit the floor, blood pouring from his skull.

He woke up in the nurses office with the student council sitting around him. "What happened?" Lelouch asked them, groaning as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

"He smacked you around the head and got away." Milly yawned. "Burst into the office, grabbed his girlfriend and pop! Gone."

"I'm sorry Lelouch." Suzaku apologised. "I shouldn't have left you alone with him…"

"It's fine, really." Lelouch laughed. "I actually talked with him before he escaped, and I think he figured out I wasn't who he was looking for."

"Thank goodness." Shirley sighed.

Lelouch looked around the hospital wing. "Where's Nunnally?"

"Here, big brother."

Lelouch turned his head around and saw his sister with Kallen. "Hey." He smiled at her, relieved to see her safe.

"How're you feeling?" Nunnally asked.

Lelouch laughed. "I'm fine, really."

"He only lost a couple of hundred IQ points." Milly joked.

"So I've still got a thousand left then." Lelouch nodded. "Yep, wit's still intact."

He ended up doing Milly's homework to prove that his brain hadn't fried, so it was dark by the time the nurse told them to leave him alone so he could rest.

He smiled to himself at his own brilliance as C.C. walked in. "Funny. Those two seemed very eager to throw their lot in with you." She said. "I thought you weren't going to Geass anyone to for eternal loyalty?"

"I didn't." Lelouch smiled. "I just altered Silver's memories so that he came here looking to see how Zero is as a person before joining the Black Knights. He still has his free will." He turned to her. "How did things go on your end?"

"Fine." C.C. shrugged. "They both start on Monday. Silver even hinted that he would help funnel Team Rocket's remaining assets into the Black Knights."

Lelouch nodded, wondering how best to go about this. "How would you like to spend a week in China discussing politics?" He asked her.

A week later, at the airport, Lelouch hung up his Pokénav, having taken Diethard's report, as a disguised C.C. walked past him, stopping a few feet away from him. "Are you sure I should be the envoy?" she asked him.

"The Chinese alliance tends to view grovelling with disdain." Lelouch explained.

"I'm nervous." C.C. sighed, bending over to check her case. "Unlike you, I have some modesty in these diplomatic matters."

"Yes, that's exactly the attitude you'll need." Lelouch nodded. "Got your passport?"

"It's very well made." C.C. told him. "It should do just fine."

With that, they both walked their separate ways; C.C. to the terminal, and Lelouch to the entrance of the airport.

He didn't notice Mao watching him from above.

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You know, this chapter was almost all written on the fly. Hooray!